It's just sort of
opening people's eyes to the richness
of the world right around us
here in Central Pennsylvania.
There are over 400 species of bees
native to Pennsylvania,
which is just remarkable.
There are over the course of the year,
over 400 different species of birds
that if you stood in
one place in this garden,
you might see a flyover.
Not long after the first phase
of the Botanic Gardens
were opened here
at the Arboretum
in 2009, conversations began about
what should be the next projects,
the next areas of the garden
to build out.
We at the Arboretum
started talking with folks at Penn
State Center for Pollinator Research
and talking with Penn
State's ornithologists
about how we could build garden spaces
that would educate people
about and attract
both pollinators and birds
to the Arboretum.
For pollinator gardeners, a garden
that's designed for pollinators,
and it has the right kind of nutrition
for pollinators inside the flowers,
nectar and pollen.
And it also blooms
at the right time of year.
So it's a garden, essentially,
that supports pollinators.
So that includes butterflies and bees,
which most people know about,
but also things like flies and beetles.
Many of these flies
mimic bees, they look like bees
and they use flowers just like bees do.
And you only notice that
if you look into the flowers themselves.
So for the pollinators themselves,
they are getting nutrition.
So they get nectar for carbohydrate
and they get pollen,
if they're bees for their micronutrients,
for their offspring
usually. For plants in the deal,
the plants get to move
around their pollen.
So they get to reproduce
because, of course, plants
can't move. For humans,
pollinators pollinate
most of the fruits and vegetables
that are necessary
for our nutrition, particularly
our micronutrients.
The extent to which we as people
rely on pollinators
and pollination for our food
cannot be overstated.
The vast majority
of the food we eat requires
pollination at some level.
In reality, pollinators
and birds interact in nature,
and they're both making
use of the same habitats
and the same plants as they go
about their daily business.
Birds are highly visible.
They're vocal.
And so because of that, birds
have really been used too,
as monitors or indicators of change.
And so you talk about
canary in the coal mine
that they're telling you
that a change is occurring.
Being able to track
those changes is a super important role.
The birds play
just because they're the ones
who are telling us there's a problem.
Birds have shown really major declines
since the 1970s.
And you've got people
interested in
what can I do in
my community or at my home.
And here you've got examples of it
and the way it's laid out.
You can pick and you can see, you know,
what you might be able to do
on your own turf,
whether it's a community park
or your own backyard.
We at the Arboretum
would never be able to do what we do
without volunteers.
And that was certainly the case
with building the pollinator
and bird garden.
In total, volunteers
helped us plant one hundred
and ten thousand plants.
Donors, individual
people have contributed all the funding
for construction and to maintain
this new garden.
One of the things that we're most excited
about here in the pollinator garden is
providing space for
faculty and instructors
to teach classes out in the garden.
One of the most important things
that we're hoping
garden visitors take away
from an experience in the pollinator
garden is a sense of inspiration,
that there are all these beautiful plants
that they can grow
even in their home
gardens, that, in addition
to being lovely additions
to their landscape, can also provide
real sources of support
for other animals.
The main message,
hopefully, is that
pollinators are important for our lives.
But people can also help by planting
just more flowers.
Another thing that we hope to open
people's eyes to
is just the amazing diversity
of life in our region of the world.